New technologies for youth prevention: a blended research design to study help relationship on the Internet

In this contribution we describe a complex research design on the efficacy of a mediated listening service addressed to adolescents and young people that use various communication channels (forum and chat). Introducing a medium in help relations means modifying the interaction itself. In fact, the medium transfers some of its intrinsic characteristics into the relation and imposes adaptations on the flow and the communication style. So, it is important to promote studies about mediated help, in order to verify how counseling principles adapt and are modified by the media. Here, we propose to adopt a blended methodology being able to integrate qualitative and quantitative strategies in order to analyse different but inter-linked topics.